Andy Murray at Wimbledon: tennis should be about strawberries and cream, not 'winning'

I hate sport. It’s not just because I’m a pasty-faced lightweight who gets out of breath eating his cornflakes. Like millions of other boys, I was put through the misery of school sports and it left me opposed to the whole thing for life. A robust game of bridge is about all I can manage.

My school was one of those that looked upon rugby not as a sport but a trial of character. I can’t count (probably thanks to brain injury) the number of times some fat psychopath bore down on me – shoulder cracking against hip, head thrown to the ground, eyes moist with tears and dirt water. This was our Dunkirk, our Battle of the Somme. The only way out was a faked note from mother about an inherited knee complaint.

Finally, at 15, I was given an alternative option: tennis. Tennis was taught by the religious studies master, a nice old Baptist whose twin subjects of conversation were a) sexual acts that could get you into Hell and b) an eventful holiday he once took in Provence. He’d sit on the bench in a big floppy hat (I never saw him lift a racket) shouting out cheery encouragements like, “Well done, Stanley, that one nearly went over the net!” or “Remember boys, there’s no shame in serving underarm.”

Don’t get me wrong: I was rubbish at it. I have all the tennis dexterity of a hippo on ice. But tennis wasn’t about the winning, it was about taking part. Stainless white shorts, cups of orange juice, a cigarette clasped between the teeth mid-serve, a “Jolly what-ho!” as one goes in, and then – most English of all – apologizing when you’ve won a point. If you really wanted to win, but had no upper body strength, you could play like a cad. I was a master at those effete little lobs that fall just behind the net, or coughing loudly when the other fella is about to serve. And if you haven’t a hope in Hell of reaching a ball as it lands just within the court, call it out. Nine times out of ten, the short sighted old lady you’re playing against won’t know the difference.

When I was young, English competitors at Wimbledon were regarded as nice chaps who didn’t stand a slither of a chance of winning. They were there to represent all that’s best about Britain: self-effacing, good tailoring, no foul language, reassuringly rubbish. For goodness sake, the last Briton to get to the Wimbledon finals was called “Bunny.”

But then, everything changed. Metal rackets replaced wooden ones. Serves became faster and faster, to the point where the game is really just a competition between serves and volleys. The players developed an unnatural body tone that suggests (shudder) athleticism. The sport that once gave us Sue Barker and Virginia Wade now gives us Serena Williams and Agnieszka Radwanska.

How our British players have changed. Until the early 1990s, we were represented by men who were really only there to escape the wife for the afternoon. If they ever made it past round one, it was because a clerical error had put them up against an eight-year old girl with a broken leg. They never expected to win and we didn’t mind because they were such charming losers.

By contrast, Andy Murray is from that grunting, slamming, angry school of sports that seems to require a constant look of disgust etched on his face. Nothing shocked me more than a story in Friday’s Daily Mail comparing the torsos of Murray and his last opponent, Jo Wilfried-Tsonga. Tennis players shouldn’t look like Charles Atlas. In times past, when they lifted their tops to wipe the sweat from their brow, you’d see a surgical scar from a heart bypass.

Yes, the athlete Murray might win the finals on Sunday. But at what cost, Britain? The world will now look upon us as winners and we’ll have to start winning in other sports, too. The jig will be up. Perhaps Mr Murray might be persuaded to take one for the team and lose? It’s our only hope of keeping our title as the most stylishly mediocre nation in the world. And we middle-class wimps can have our sport back.